United States then, Europe now (2012) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

United States then, Europe now (2012) [pdf]

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24 pointsdataker16 comments

And who among us would have guessed that the answer to problems caused by the EU and a single currency is concentrating yet more power in the central government?

It is instructive to go back and read the arguments the anti-federalists made during the constitutional debate. As near as I can tell, they were correct across the board. And yet, in the state school I attended, I never read them.

Strange, that.

Here are some:

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/ratification/timeline-fed...

"they were correct across the board"

That's impossible. The "Anti-Federalists" were a diverse set of groups with no unifying themes other than opposition to the newly proposed Constitution. Southern racists and Northern working class movements made anti-federalist arguments for wildly different reasons. It's impossible for anti-federalists to be "correct across the board" because some of the arguments they made were contradictory.

More so, it is trivially easy to find anti-federaist arguments that turned out to be wrong. Several people who identified as anti-federalist predicted that the new constitution would lead to tyranny, and yet, 227 years later, the government retains most of the nominal forms of a liberal polity: a mostly independent judiciary, freedom of media, public criticism, habeus corpus in all but the most extreme cases, etc.

The constitution has stood for over 200 years and even when a sort of anti-federalist civil war occurred, the anti-federalist side adopted it nearly word or word.

The failure of the EU proves the anti-federalists wrong. A weak centralized government isn't stable.

A US under the articles of confederation wouldn't be recognizable. We would have been picked apart by the British and French.

> And who among us would have guessed that the answer to problems caused by the EU and a single currency is concentrating yet more power in the central government?

The problem is not "caused" by a single currency, exactly -- it's caused by the combination of a single currency and a weak governing body. Disparate currencies, each with their own government -- yes. One currency, controlled by one entity -- yes. A combination of the two? Not so good.

Can you say some more about the arguments linked here and the evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) that supports the thesis that they were right?

I say this having briefly browsed the links contained and the summaries provided by the front page. It is a lot of prose, and fairly prosiac if for its age. Could you help to unpack the strongest of their arguments which have been most strongly vindicated by history?

This is quite precisely what Brussels would like to see - federated power over a loose union of nations with the ultimate goal of emerging as a sort of United States of Europe.

As NATO is being challenged and Pax Americana not working out the way we thought, this seems smart. I wish the best to our historical allies.

NATO is basically the US, France, Germany, and the UK. I don't see there being many changes to that group in the near future, in terms of its counter to Russia (which is of course the primary reason for NATO's existence). They drive NATO, and will continue to stick together in various terms for all the overwhelmingly obvious self-interest reasons. Russia is no challenge to NATO, they're weaker than they've been in terms of being a real threat since maybe before WW2; in terms of scale and capabilities, they're being left behind. Most of the easy gains have already been had by Putin when it comes to re-boosting oil production, ie the party is over, which is why he is shifting to external aggression; the US economy is now nine times the size of Russia's, and that gap will only continue to expand - there's only so much military threat a country can pose when it has an economy that is going to eventually be ~8% your size.

I'm not sure what the expectations were on PAX Americana, but the US is in a stronger position today than it has been in nearly 20 years. The dollar and its share of reserves around the globe are higher than they have been in a long time, with the Euro losing vast amounts of purchasing power rapidly, and losing a lot of share of reserves as people seek to dump it (and QE will push its value much lower yet). The Yen is a disaster, as Japan is aggressively debasing it to prevent bankruptcy. The Yuan is a distant second tier currency that still doesn't matter, and won't for a long time yet. Today the dollar reserve reigns supreme in a way few expected it to after the financial crisis.

When it comes to China challenging the US - and they are the sole challenger - it's no worse than the USSR from 1950-1980. The US holds vast sway over nearly the entire planet, both financially and militarily; outside of Russia and China it is able to operate almost anywhere and at any time. Able to twist any country's arm financially, including the Swiss. The global surveillance system the US built, is going almost entirely unchallenged (and I'm not saying I support that fact); nothing is being rolled back or stopped, rather it is advancing. And when it comes to Europe, the US has gained about $3 trillion on the European economy since 2008, as Europe has seen net zero growth during that time; that's a vast amount of GDP pick-up, and that spread is likely to get worse in the next decade. Pax Americana is stronger today than it has been in decades, the sole set-back I can think of is the AIIB and that shouldn't be a set-back, the US should have joined it as a founding member to its own benefit.

The challenges to NATO are mostly that the threat (as you so well document and argue) it was originally conceived for is no longer something strong enough to sustain it - it is being perpetuated beyond the context that birthed it. Today's challenges to nuclear proliferation and of globalization and revisionism call for something other than NATO.

The US is by essentially every account not in a stronger position. Perhaps we should belabor this disagreement with more discussion. You might have some more to say - let me know if you would like this proposition defended.

But getting back to the point, how do you feel this informs an EU headed towards being a United States of Europe? Do you feel that it is a nice addition to an unchallenged Pax Americana? Is it a threat? Can it exist alongside NATO or will it supercede it? Is the USE a bunk idea?

>Russia is no challenge to NATO, they're weaker than they've been in terms of being a real threat since maybe before WW2; in terms of scale and capabilities, they're being left behind.

I really don't think this is correct. Russia has fielded technologies recently that represent a serious threat to NATO, and they appear to be getting more and more aggressive as a result of the confidence gained from these technological programs. Russia has real experience with War in Europe - something that NATO can only simulate at this point - and it has proven its ability to dominate in the battlefield on the ground in countless events recently.

Whereas NATO is continually attempting to encroach on territories previously dominated by Russian military power, it is still not quite in complete control over the Eastern-Europe regions which represent the future stage for conflict between the two entities.

I'd really like to understand your argument better - can you explain how you think that NATO has the upper hand over Russia at the moment? Because I don't feel that is the case at all - to me, living in middle-Europe, it seems like NATO is playing a cats game with the tiger.

Going to a war with the world's major powers is not exactly like running roughshod over South Ossetia or Ukraine. By this metric NATO members have proved their mettle by destroying government's like Libya's at very little cost to themselves (disastrous consequences of that action aside).

Do you really think that a war in middle-/eastern- Europe would be comparable to the actions taken in Libya? Because I seriously do not think so. Libya has suffered decades of incursions - the recent events did not just happen overnight, it took a lot of effort to degrade Libyan military prowess to the point it could just be rolled over - this is not going to happen in any of the states in Europe that NATO vs. Russia may involve.

I think there is myopic thinking here, on the part of the West, and I'd really truly like to understand it. Why do you think that NATO has the upper hand in the European theatre at the moment? From the perspective of someone on the ground, it sure seems like Russia is getting what it wants.

Damaging economic sanctions in trade for the right to support Crimea (which has no land route to Russia) during a time of general budgetary problems caused by low oil prices?

It looks to me like an expensive reactionary measure provoked by the US' idiotic interference in Ukrainian politics...

What am I missing? Is there some reason Russia desperately wanted Crimea, or turmoil and devastation in Ukraine?

Yes, Crimea and Eastern Ukraine shares a border with Russia, NATO exercises had been going on in Crimea under the purview of a Western CSO propelled Kiev, Ukraine and under it the republic of Crimea was slotted for entry into the EU (and eventually NATO, like other former Warsaw states) at a time international financial-political sabotage was being orchestrated in the EU to thwart attempt to have Russia's pipelines through Crimea and the Baltics to the Balkins, and because the "Independent" Republic of Crimea serves as a critical water base and military nexus for Russia and because historically, politically and by nationality Russia and Crimea are much closer to one another than even Russia and Kiev; because the EU's energy trade legislation would make Kiev and Crimea distributers of Russian oil like Poland/Czech; because NATO actions in Serbia/Kosovo broke Cold War treaties when Russia could not defend itself; because missile batteries and THAAD systems in the Baltics deployed by the US and EU ruin Russia's deterents and intercept capabilities and similarly break longstanding nuclear treaties; because the treaties being negotiated in Keiv (the non-violent option was not working) and because the West-backed coup was working according to orchestration despite disruption; because the Bush administration refused to extend age old nuclear disarmament treaties; because the EU is building up to a United States of Europe on Russia's border; and because prior actions taken by NATO in the support on non-NATO allied countries in the past decade have shown that the EU intends a regional hegemony.

Russia had many incentives to want Crimea. Certainly the West is making Russia pay for Crimea. But the Putin administrations actions radically stunned the NATO allied powers. Cat in a Tiger game.

I don't think it will continue this way, as contigency and response planning is by now surely narrowed down - maybe we'll get to see it if Mariupol is captured. In the long term under the faltering of the Eurasian Union Russia risks becoming a satellite state to China - so it will be interesting to see how the dynamics play out (for the sake of EU/US, we might hope that the 'balance of powers' is a century dead.)

Russia is getting what it wants because, to be frank, everyone in Western Europe and the United States does not really care about Ukraine enough to make the sacrifices that would be necessary to stop them (not economically and certainly not in terms of loss of life).

> NATO is basically the US, France, Germany, and the UK.

I'd definitely add Turkey to that. Has more duty members than anyone but the US. More aircraft than anyone but the US. More ships than anyone but the US. More armored than Germany, UK and France combined. They may not all be as high-tech, but it's quite capable, and has nuclear capacity (though no capability right now, like Germany). Beyond being one of the most interesting partners from a geographic perspective.

> The US economy is now nine times the size of Russia's, and that gap will only continue to expand - there's only so much military threat a country can pose when it has an economy that is going to eventually be ~8% your size.

And yet, Russia is a Nuclear power, a regional power and has a UN security council seat. And it has better ties with US's backyard in a number of South American countries, as it does with the regional power in the Middle East: Iran, which will only grow its influence now that its counterweight Iraq is ruined, and the Shia majority of Iraq welcomes, to an extent, Iran for security and stability, much like Hezbollah started out in Lebanon.

That means it can't attack Russia head on (because nuclear), it can employ sanctions, but Russia's economy is relatively sturdy because its main export product is relatively easy to sell (fossil fuels, Europe simply needs them one way or another), compared to economies reliant on exporting less crucial products. Russia is able to regionally trespass international law, and Nato is unlikely to fight it militarily, and while economic sanctions do hurt (a lot), Russia is still a market economy with economic partners, and has an export product in high demand.

So while I agree, Russia is far from the most powerful force, the game is definitely not over and Russia is still a major player and it'll likely continue to be. Especially in a world where China is balancing the playing field. (e.g. its economic/infrastructure led push into South American politics, again, America's backyard, or acting as a trade partner for sanctioned economies).

Fact is, a military means less in a nuclear age where direct confrontation is rare and economic/cyber/guerrilla options take priority. Especially when you have large economic blocks that all employ market economies outside of the US/EU, that can provide trade partnerships for sanctioned economies. Cuba was able to easily survive when it had the Soviets as a trade partner in the 50s or 60s. But as the Soviets had no market economy to grow its economy and Cuba was sanctioned to hell and back, it became stagnant. Today, a country like Iran is sanctioned similarly, but it can survive and even thrive, its population grows, its economy advances (somewhat, slowly), its military grows, its political influence grows fast in the region, and it works towards a nuclear bomb, despite harsh sanctions. It's because the US cannot simply invade it, nor twist the whole world's arm to stop all trade. Non-aligned countries, Russia and China, and neighbouring countries, all continue to trade with Iran, whether officially or not, legally or covertly.

The US power is not going away anytime soon, and it's true that it is more powerful than ever. Fact is, the same can be said of many other countries. Russia is much stronger today than anytime in the past 30 years or so. As is China, as is Iran, and South America has never been so independent of US influence as today. Paradoxically, the US may have already lost the long-term game despite the fact I agree with you, it's never been this powerful in a way.

Russia's economy doesn't seem as sturdy as all that; review recent events.

You may find a book called _Collapse of Empire_ by Yegor Gaidar, a Russian economist and briefly the prime minister, interesting. The argument is far too long to encapsulate, but briefly, an over reliance on resource extraction and export caused the collapse of the Soviet empire and continues to put the Russian empire at great risk.

ps -- I briefly lived in Russia, found the majority of people there to be my kind of people, and am very bummed about the wave of xenophobia / nationalism / homophobia stoked by Putin to maintain political support. I think the state has the strong potential to do much better economically than resource extraction allows it to do.

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